Latest Coverage

"Washington is in the middle of a fight on sequestration.' Unless the government takes action to balance our national budget, we will face the reality of devastating cuts to all government-funded budgets -- the so-called fiscal cliff. Unfortunately, here in the Clark County School District, this bickering could translate to slashed funding for federal education programs that serve our neediest students such as Title I funding for low-income students and programs for special needs students through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)."

"She knew that colleges sent out millions of letters to 11th-graders who took the Princeton Review prep course. The whole Dear Tabitha campaign was about as personal as fliers from Tire Express. But nearing the end of her junior year of high school, without a single item of value to secure her future not even a $50 U.S. savings bond from a departed relative the mail was all she had."

"If the Texas Legislature is in session, there must be a fight about Medicaid going on. The health care program for the disabled, the elderly poor and the impoverished raises hackles every two years, mostly because the number in need keeps rising alongside health care costs."

"This is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability."

"Starting next fall, Public School 133 in Park Slope will set aside 30% of its coveted kindergarten seats for kids who are living in poverty or are struggling to learn English. The local school board voted to approve the admissions scheme this week after dozens of meetings with parents, education officials and school administrators."

"That's according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which for the first time Thursday reported vocabulary scores pulled out from the reading tests given to fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders nationwide. Which is troubling, experts say, since vocabulary is essential to reading comprehension, and poverty keeps rising in Illinois. More than half the state's 1.95 million schoolchildren qualified for free or reduced lunch in 2012."

"Spring Lake Elementary is overcrowded, but Sabal Point, Wekiva, Forest City and Bear Lake elementary schools have excess student desks. Sabal Point, which is farthest from Spring Lake, has the most room. The rezoning plans developed by the committee must balance the percentage of low-income students at each school."

"As many as 6,000 children and their families are entitled to free lunches, waived fees, school supplies and other financial help, but aren't receiving it, according to school district estimates. Many of them don't fit the traditional picture of homelessness -- living outside, in parks or beneath overpasses -- but some do. Under an energetic new leader, the former principal of Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. School of the Arts, the Homeless Education Assistance Resource Team is trying to find these children -- and then help make sure they graduate."

"The McKinney-Vento Act, the primary federal legislation on education of homeless children, requires districts to provide transportation to displaced students who live within 50 miles of district boundaries. It also provides free lunch. The overnight growth in the homeless population has generated all sorts of questions,' said Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer for Eastern Suffolk BOCES. A few districts are used to dealing with a few kids. It is now many districts that are dealing with an enormous population.'"

"The Waukee City Council on Monday approved the final reading of a zoning change that paves the way for a developer to build a low-income senior apartment complex in Waukee."

"Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Wednesday pledged to continue his support of education reforms in general and early childhood slots in particular at a groundbreaking of a center in Fair Haven Heights that will expand accredited preschool options for low- income children."

"We must have facts, both to make the right decision and, if expanding school is the right decision, to defuse arguments against doing it. So it's important news that 40 schools in five states, including New York, will add 300 instructional hours per year in a study to design more effective schools. The program, a collaboration between the Ford Foundation, the federal government and the states and districts involved, was designed by the National Center on Time & Learning, a nonprofit that seeks to expand learning time. The schools involved face high poverty, the area in which education is most clearly failing."